Study : The Single Mother Squeeze Index

A state-by-state ranking of childcare costs against welfare support, built from federal childcare pricing data and state cash-assistance figures. Across the 50 states and Washington, D.C., all but one fail to provide a full year of welfare checks that covers a full year of child care.

Published Sep 10 2026 by Diane Miller, Senior writer   |   All 50 states + Washington, D.C.   |   Sources: Child Care Aware of America, National Center for Children in Poverty

Key findings

 

Ten figures pulled directly from the underlying data, covering the size of the gap between childcare costs and cash assistance across the country.

01. In 49 of the 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., a year of welfare checks won’t cover a year of daycare

Only in Wyoming does 12 months of TANF cash assistance add up to more than a year of infant care costs. Everywhere else, including every other state and Washington, D.C., it takes longer than a year of saved checks to cover 12 months of care. In Delaware and Missouri, it takes close to four years.

02. A single mother on welfare in Arkansas lives on $6.80 a day for her whole family

Arkansas pays $204 a month in cash assistance to a family of three, the lowest maximum benefit of any state.

03. Same federal program, seven times the money

Minnesota pays $1,430 a month in TANF cash assistance to a family of three. Arkansas pays $204. Both are the same program, run at the state level.

04. Six states pay less than $10 a day to a family of three

Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Georgia, Missouri and Oklahoma all cap TANF cash assistance under $300 a month total.

05. Nationally, welfare covers less than half of what a year of daycare costs

A full year of the average state’s TANF checks still falls $7,449 short of covering one year of infant care.

06. In Washington, D.C., the shortfall is worth almost two years of the benefit itself

A year of TANF cash in D.C. comes to $9,636. Infant care costs $28,356. The $18,720 gap is worth close to two years of the benefit.

07. One in five dollars a New Mexico family earns goes on infant daycare alone

New Mexico families spend 21% of median family income on infant care before rent, food, gas or anything else. It’s the heaviest childcare burden of any state, and the reason it ranks first on the index.

08. It would take three years and eight months of Arkansas welfare checks to cover one year of daycare

At $204 a month, a family would need to save every single TANF payment for 43.5 months straight to match what one year of infant care costs there.

09. Seven states pay under 15 cents on the dollar of what the government defines as survival

Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina and Oklahoma all set their maximum TANF payment below 15% of the federal poverty line for a family of three.

10. The cheapest state for daycare still can’t close its own gap

Mississippi has the lowest sticker price for infant care in the US ($6,868/year), but its TANF check is so low ($260/month) that families there still can’t cover it without other help.

The full ranking

All 50 states plus Washington, D.C., ranked from most to least squeezed. Rank 1 = most squeezed.

Rank	State	Infant care /yr	% of family income	Max TANF /mo (fam. of 3)	TANF % of poverty line	Squeeze score
1	New Mexico	$14,244	21.0%	$549	24.7%	86.0
2	Nevada	$15,950	18.3%	$386	17.4%	80.8
3	Oregon	$19,064	18.2%	$506	22.8%	75.6
4	Arizona	$15,625	16.5%	$347	15.6%	74.9
5	Oklahoma	$12,468	15.4%	$292	13.1%	72.3
6	Delaware	$16,220	15.7%	$338	15.2%	71.8
7	Alaska	$20,943	19.4%	$923	33.2%	71.4
8	Hawaii	$21,167	20.0%	$985	38.6%	69.1
9	Missouri	$13,173	14.6%	$292	13.1%	68.8
10	Ohio	$17,071	17.7%	$623	28.1%	68.6
11	Colorado	$21,840	17.9%	$649	29.2%	68.4
12	Florida	$13,021	14.1%	$303	13.6%	66.2
13	Indiana	$14,471	16.0%	$513	23.1%	65.9
14	Tennessee	$12,249	14.8%	$387	17.4%	65.8
15	Washington	$20,677	17.5%	$706	31.8%	64.4
16	Georgia	$11,863	13.0%	$280	12.6%	62.4
17	North Carolina	$11,720	12.8%	$272	12.2%	62.0
18	Massachusetts	$26,709	18.1%	$861	38.8%	60.6
19	Wisconsin	$16,956	16.0%	$653	29.4%	60.3
20	Arkansas	$8,873	11.5%	$204	9.2%	59.2
21	South Carolina	$11,512	13.7%	$449	20.2%	58.4
22	Pennsylvania	$13,354	13.3%	$421	19.0%	57.8
23	Nebraska	$14,106	14.3%	$584	26.3%	55.7
24	Vermont	$18,836	17.0%	$880	39.6%	55.1
25	Maryland	$18,946	15.6%	$753	33.9%	54.4
26	New York	$17,361	15.5%	$756	34.0%	53.9
27	West Virginia	$9,692	13.5%	$542	24.4%	53.8
28	Connecticut	$20,254	16.2%	$833	37.5%	53.8
29	Kentucky	$8,756	11.4%	$341	15.4%	52.9
30	Virginia	$14,277	13.1%	$559	25.2%	51.5
31	Texas	$10,706	11.6%	$405	18.2%	51.3
32	Idaho	$9,630	11.3%	$389	17.5%	50.7
33	Mississippi	$6,868	10.0%	$260	11.7%	50.3
34	Rhode Island	$16,758	15.7%	$865	38.9%	50.2
35	New Jersey	$18,155	13.0%	$599	27.0%	49.4
36	California	$21,945	18.4%	$1,175	52.9%	49.3
37	Montana	$12,778	13.8%	$725	32.6%	47.9
38	Illinois	$16,107	14.3%	$777	35.0%	47.6
39	Alabama	$7,871	9.8%	$344	15.5%	46.2
40	Utah	$13,094	12.8%	$662	29.8%	45.8
41	Iowa	$9,605	10.2%	$426	19.2%	44.3
42	Kansas	$9,105	10.1%	$429	19.3%	43.8
43	Louisiana	$8,873	10.5%	$484	21.8%	43.5
44	Michigan	$10,023	10.9%	$583	26.2%	41.2
45	Minnesota	$22,569	18.8%	$1,430	64.4%	40.4
46	Maine	$13,310	13.6%	$917	41.3%	39.2
47	District of Columbia	$28,356	11.8%	$803	36.2%	35.9
48	South Dakota	$8,680	9.4%	$626	28.2%	32.8
49	Wyoming	$9,327	11.1%	$920	41.4%	28.1
50	North Dakota	$12,373	10.9%	$916	41.2%	27.5
51	New Hampshire	$17,364	13.4%	$1,329	59.8%	21.5

 

 

Squeeze score averages a normalised childcare-burden score and a normalised safety-net-inadequacy score, each on a 0–100 scale. Full calculation in the methodology below.

Methodology

What the index measures The Single Mother Squeeze Index scores each state and Washington, D.C. on two equally weighted factors: 1. Childcare burden: the annual cost of infant, center-based childcare as a percentage of that state’s median family income (2025). 2. Safety-net inadequacy: how far a state’s maximum TANF cash benefit for a family of three falls below the Federal Poverty Level (2025/26), inverted so a low benefit produces a high (worse) score. Each factor is min-max normalised to a 0–100 scale across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. (51 jurisdictions in total), then averaged into a single Squeeze Index score. Jurisdictions are ranked from 1 (most squeezed) to 51 (least squeezed). Known limitation: the childcare-cost share uses overall median family income, not single-mother household income specifically, because that is the income figure published in the source data. A future version could substitute Census ACS Table S1702 (poverty status of families) for a single-mother-income-specific figure. Data verification note: all figures were checked directly against primary sources in September 2026. Two states’ TANF benefits changed during 2025 and this analysis uses the current, post-change amounts: Kentucky reduced its maximum benefit from $524 to $341 in November 2025, and South Dakota reduced its benefit from $696 to $626 in August 2025 as the first phase of a rolling cut the state plans to continue over several years. Because South Dakota’s figure may fall further in future years, readers citing this study after 2026 should reverify that figure against NCCP’s then-current release.

Sources

Childcare cost & median family income: Child Care Aware of America / Economic Policy Institute, compiled by World Population Review, February 2025.

TANF maximum benefit & % of Federal Poverty Level: National Center for Children in Poverty, “TANF Cash Assistance Maximum Benefit Amounts (2025/26),” May 2026.

Data compiled and published by singlemothersgrants.org. For interview requests or the full dataset, contact https://singlemothersgrants.org/contact-us/